Lady of the Lake
1/9th scale Resin kit from Karol Rudyk
Painted in 2019
I know I’m terrible for buying kits and I know there’s certain things that put me off from buying them. One thing I now won’t touch is Kickstarters. Simply put I’ve been stung once too often with lies about delivery times and extra costs because of late delivery.
Another thing I dislike is “Order this superb model now and we’ll ship it to you in a few months”….. However, there are exceptions, Karol Rudyk’s offerings being one, along with Spira Mirabilis being another.
Yes there is a time lag between payment and actually getting the model that is ordered, but these are two sources that I have dealt with and who deliver on time or at least answer when a customer asks a question.
Oh, and they do produce some stunning pieces.
This one in particular from Mr Rudyk, which comes in two forms, the one seen here is a large scale half figure, and there is also a very nice 75mm full figure that I also felt I couldn’t do without.
Casting is good, fit of parts is ok, although a small amount of filler was needed for a couple of tiny gaps, and to be honest, it’s just a really good-looking model.
I would need to hide some joints – those on the hands /arms would be very difficult to hide after painting, and glueing them in place beforehand would make reaching certain parts of the torso very awkward.
To fix this problem I added the thin wire bracelets that wind around the arms from the wrists. It’s a simple addition, some soft wire glued in place and painted to represent silver once the hands are added. It saves messing about trying to get behind the sword to paint the body, and negates the need for filler as the wire covers any gap between the parts.
I’ve used this method a few times to hide joints on flesh areas, and the wire is a replacement “lead” product that is used in “fly tying” that fishermen use for making flies for fly fishing. It’s available from fishing tackle shops that deal in such items, or of course off the internet and is available in different diameters.
One thing I didn’t notice until I’d completed all the painting was that the end of the cloth strip that winds around the hilt of the sword defies gravity. This in part is due to casting restrictions, in that the end has to be part of the hilt, but if I’d noticed sooner, then I’d have been tempted to carve the end of the strip away and replace it with some epoxy putty so that it fell more naturally….. Oh well, roads not taken and opportunities missed.
Next admission…..
This model was painted at a point when I wasn’t thinking of writing articles, hence no “in process” shots, I can only run through the painting process with text and hope that you are OK with the lack of pictorial evidence.
I’ve moved away from painting skin sections first on my more recent pieces, I haven’t a clue why, but on smaller figures it does seem to speed the process up, on larger figures, I guess it’s just a case of a change being as good as a rest.
However, having stated that, on this half figure I reverted back to painting the flesh first, possibly that was because I wanted to see how the blue skin would look, as I cannot remember having painted flesh that colour for quite some time – if ever.
Undercoating was done with a 50:50 mix of Midnight Blue ( a very old GW acrylic colour ) and MP flesh coloured acrylic. Given three coats of that and I got a solid even coating of the paint.
Now there was the problem – which blue oil colour to use as a starting point.
I decided on Prussian Blue, a good strong pigment in this case from Winsor and Newton. It’s very dark, which is great for the shadows, and I thought that using Buff Titanium might work to make lighter shades for mid-tones and highlights.
White would have looked wrong somehow, and anything with more yellow in it ( Mars Yellow for example ), even lightened with the Buff or the White before mixing with the Prussian Blue, would result in a green hue creeping in.
I wanted the blue to remain blue so to speak
A small amount of the Buss Titanium was mixed with the Prussian Blue on the palette to test out how pale I wanted the darker mid-tones, then this was applied to the flesh areas with a large brush. I used an old brush ( about a size 4 ) to stipple the whole of the skin sections so that all brushstrokes were removed, then began adding small amounts of the Buff Titanium, and using another clean. dry brush ( again about a size 3 or 4 ) to gently blend in the lighter colour with that surrounding it.
By gradually adding small amounts of the light colour I could control the placing of the highlights as they built up, remembering which way the separate parts that were left off the main casting would be placed when the model was finished, and building up the highlights accordingly.
I couldn’t resist adding a beauty spot to the lower left cheek – a spot of black which is then softened by stippling it lightly with a small brush. I add these to every female figure or bust I do, it breaks up the flawless skin in a good way I think.
The effect I ended up with was ( to me at least ) surprisingly pleasing.
Although ( yes, you knew there was a “But” coming ), it looked a bit flat…… and a bit boring.
I might have mentioned in previous articles that I’ve returned to a broader spectrum of model subjects, and this has taken me down a road of using different mediums and techniques. As a modeller and painted I still consider myself to be learning, but the great thing about that is playing around with new ideas, or in this case returning to a very old one that I used on the GinA ( Goddess in Alloy ) figure years ago.
This being the addition of a coating of a reflective metallic mica through an airbrush.
I don’t know why the idea came to me to do this, I hadn’t been looking at the GinA figure, so that can’t have sparked it, but it just seemed the idea popped into my head, and like a cartoon light-bulb moment, it seemed like it should work.
Loading up the airbrush with the metallic fluid from Alclad, I sprayed a very light coating over the skin areas, and in some of the shots the light covering of reflective mica can bee seen on the skin.
Clothing.
Whilst I do like the choice of colours used for the box art on this model, I thought I’d go with more conventional leather colours for the larger scale half figure ( I might go for the black on the full figure – if / when I get around to painting it.
So the upper bodice and lower section of clothing ( Could be trousers, could be the top of a skirt, who knows ? ) were undercoated with a sand coloured acrylic, and then oils could be added over the top.
I began with a very dark mix of Mars Black with a little Mars Brown added in, painting this over the whole area and stippling it with a soft brush to get rid of the brush marks.
Adding more of the Mars Brown to areas I wanted to build up to mid-tones, then some Light Red to transition into highlights, with a very small amount of Mars Yellow added to top of the brightest areas over the top of the breasts.
I did revert to using the very dark brown – it’s almost black – for the straps that run over the shoulders though.
The section of the body between the two areas of clothing just painted can be interpreted in different ways I suppose. Is it clothing, or is it the figure’s skin ?…..
I’m going to confuse matters by saying I’m not sure, but painting on a scaled pattern does nothing to solve the riddle, other than say it could be either skin or clothing and the pattern is done to hint at her aquatic nature.
I chose a scale pattern reminiscent of the type used to depict scales on a Koi carp in Japanese art, these being small curved quadrants laid together with gaps revealing semi-circular sections of the background colour. It takes a steady hand, a fine brush and a little bit of swearing to get them all evenly spaced and of a uniform size, but the effect looks cool once it’s done.
I thought I’d try white hair on this piece, hinting at her age, even though her face and skin display apparent youth, the water spirit in the Arthurian legends I think is very old; centuries, perhaps millennia have passed since her birth or creation, and I felt that white hair might hint at this.
I began with four or five coats of acrylic white, building us a solid colour base and then added a very pale grey oil mix, getting this into all the recesses of detail.
I used a small flat bristled brush to add white oils, using the brush like you’d use a comb to follow the flow of the hair and wiping excess paint off onto a soft cloth after each pass before recharging the brush with more white paint.
This built up the highlights quite well, although it took a few days in the drying cabinet fir it to dry.
The silver areas of the crown and other jewellery were added last, beginning with quite a dark silver from the Darkstar range of acrylics, and after adding mid-tones of a lighter silver the highlights were added with small amounts of liquid silver from a Molotow ink pen.
The sword, which is a massive piece of resin compared to the bust, was painted with a black blade. I added a small amount of the Darkstar dark silver to a large amount of Chaos Black, building up several layers of this. The acrylics work well together, mixing smoothly and giving the sword blade just a hint of sparkle, whilst remaining very dark.
The blade itself has a lot of runes sculpted into it, to make these stand out I painted the whole blade with a thin mix of white acrylic and water, wiping off the excess paint with my finger and then a damp cloth to leave the white in the runes. This took a couple of coats so that the white stood out properly, and then once fully dry I painted over a Turquoise oil colour, again wiping the excess paint away with a soft cloth to leave the paint within the recessed detail.
It worked well, simply because the outer edges of the runes had a slight outline of the white visible, making them look like they were lit from within.
As mentioned, the sword is rather large, and it would be difficult to mount this half figure on a conventional square plinth without using a piece of material that was very narrow, or having the bust offset towards one edge of the plinth.
Richard Wharton of Oakwood Studios came to the rescue here with a plinth that I know is difficult to produce, but is perfect for pieces like this, because it has sloped sides leading to a larger lower section that would offer space for the sword to pass below the flat upper surface where the body of the bust fastens into it, but still allow the tube that is fixed into the base of the body to sit centrally on the top surface of the plinth.
I used a piece of brass tube, cut with a small plumbers pipe cutter, which also allows me to add three indented lines around the tube for further decorative effect.
Final thoughts.
This piece is unusual, in that I for one like to look at it from the back. With her face looking over her left shoulder, the model is simply beautiful.
Looking closely at the photos, I realise that I should go back and add deeper shadows to the gaps between the fingers on the right hand, I hadn’t noticed prior to this that this area needs to be darker.
I don’t think I can add much more here. Karol has produced a stunning female study, and although I would have altered the cloth strip on the hilt of the sword, it’s probably not going to be noticed by most people looking at the painted piece.
It’s not often that I say I’d like to paint a second version of a model, to be honest I find it difficult to paint “good” second rounds of any kit, the exception being 1/35th scale figures, and even then I struggle. I’m not sure why this should be, but this piece makes me feel like I might just purchase a second one and have a go at doing a different colour scheme.
Of course I couldn’t resist buying the 75mm full figure, so maybe painting that would cure me of painting a second one at this scale, but it is at the back of my mind to buy another one of these if Karol has them on his stall at SMC in 2024.
We’ll see.....
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